Efforts underway in the Republican-controlled Congress and the administration of President Donald Trump to dismantle the Affordable Care Act could raise the cost of birth control, but a San Francisco startup may offer a way to keep expenses down and broaden access to contraception.
And the firm has just taken a jab at the Trump administration with a discount offer referring to the “alternative facts” claim by top White House aide Kellyanne Conway.
The ACA, known as Obamacare, demands that most insurers cover costs of birth control and a once-a-year visit to a doctor for prescribing it.
Whatever happens to Obamacare, it appears unlikely this provision will remain — Senate Republicans, in a vote that paved the way for repeal of the controversial health-insurance act, nixed a proposed amendment to preserve the contraceptives-costs mandate.
“It’s looking like women may have to go back to paying out-of-pocket for contraception if Obamacare gets gutted,” Money magazine reported after the vote.
However, users of Nurx, an online platform from an eponymous San Francisco company, may be able to keep birth control costs down, and make access to contraception easy and widespread, a new report said.
Nurx “just might be a key player in blowing birth-control access wide open, especially as women’s reproductive health becomes increasingly politicized in the U.S.,” said a report in the MIT Technology Review. “As Congress works to dismantle the Affordable Care Act … Nurx could flip from just increasing access to birth control to becoming the single most affordable way to get it in the U.S.”
The company’s doctors prescribe birth control to patients online, and the firm sends the goods to the patient.
“The way Nurx works is simple: you register for a free account online, fill out a questionnaire of basic medical inquiries, exchange a few instant messages with a licensed doctor, and receive a package in the mail containing your birth-control method of choice,” the Technology Review reported. “There are no consultation or delivery fees, so in most cases if you have insurance, it’s free.
“If you don’t have insurance, then you pay only for the cost of the medication itself.”
A variety of birth control pills are on offer, including the Plan B emergency pill to be taken after unprotected sex, plus a couple of non-pill options such as vaginal rings.
So far, the service is available in California, New York, Washington, D.C., Washington State, Illinois, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
“It’s especially beneficial for women in health-care ‘deserts’ who don’t live near physicians or pharmacies, disabled women who may find it hard to access the physicians and pharmacies they do live near, and working women who can’t afford to take time off to visit a prescribing doctor,” according to the Technology Review.
In promotional materials, Nurx said the cost of a visit to a doctor can pose “an insurmountable barrier to getting birth control for many women.”
If Obamacare is repealed, Nurx “will continue to serve as a low-cost option for women for birth control and continue to make it as accessible as possible,” the firm said in an email to the Mercury News.
The company cites a minimum cost of $15 per month for contraceptives, with the price depending on the drug.
Nurx makes money by taking a cut from insurers and getting fees from independent pharmacies it uses for the prescription filling, according to the Technology Review.
Obamacare at present saves oral contraceptive users an average of $255 per year, according to Nurx.
And through the end of February, Nurx is offering $45 in free birth control to new users who use the promotional code “AlternativeFacts” at checkout.
Trump aide Kellyanne Conway notoriously called White House spokesman Sean Spicer’s demonstrably false claims about the size of Trump’s inauguration crowd “alternative facts.”
Photo: NURX co-founders Hans Gangeskar, lower left, and A. Edvard Engesaeth work at their San Francisco startup in January 2016. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)